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Waltharius is a Latin language Epic poetry founded on Germany popular tradition relating the exploits of the Visigoths hero Walter of Aquitaine. While its subject matter is taken from early medieval Germanic legend, the epic stands firmly in the Latin literature in terms of its form and the stylistic devices used. Thus, its 1456 verses are written in dactylic hexameter (the traditional meter of Latin epic poetry) and the poem includes copious references to (and phrases borrowed from) various Latin epics of antiquity, especially Vergil's Aeneid.
Waltharius was dedicated by Geraldus to Erchanbald, bishop of Strasbourg (floruit 965–991), but manuscripts of it were in circulation before that time. Ekkehard IV stated that he corrected the Latin of the poem, the Germanisms of which offended his patron Aribo, archbishop of Mainz. The poem was probably based on epic songs now lost, so that if the author was still in his teens when he wrote it he must have possessed considerable and precocious powers.
Hagano and Waltharius became brothers in arms, fighting at the head of Attila's armies, while Hiltgunt was put in charge of the queen's treasure. Presently Guntharius succeeded his father and refused to pay tribute to the Huns, whereupon Hagano fled from Attila's court. Waltharius and Hiltgunt, who had been betrothed in childhood, also made good their escape during a drunken feast of the Huns, taking with them a great treasure. They were recognized at Worms, however, where the treasure excited the cupidity of Guntharius. Taking with him twelve knights, among them the reluctant Hagano, he pursued them, and overtook them at the Wasgenstein in the Vosges mountains (Vosagus). Waltharius, mentioned as being armed in fine armor made by the legendary smith Wieland, engaged the Nibelungen knights one at a time, until all were slain but Hagano. The latter held aloof from the battle due to his vows of friendship with Waltharius, and was only persuaded by Guntharius to attack his comrade due to Waltharius' killing of some of family members. So Hagano and Guntharius devised a plan to wait until the second day, when they lured Waltharius from the strong position of the day before and attacked him together. All three were incapacitated, but their wounds were bound up by Hiltgunt and they separated as friends.
One of the most extensive studies of the poem is by Dennis M. Kratz, who argues that the poem makes sophisticated use of allusions to its Classical sources to satirise the heroic ethics of its protagonists.Dennis M. Kratz, Mocking Epic: Waltharius, Alexandreis and the Problem of Christian Heroism (Madrid: José Porrúa Turanzas, 1980).
There are two fragments of a 9th-century Old English version, known as Waldere, consisting of 15 lines each, discovered in 1860, edited by George Stephens.
Dennis Kratz produced an English edition and translation under the title, Waltharius, and Ruodlieb, ed. and trans. by Dennis M. Kratz, The Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Series A, 13 (New York: Garland, 1984). More recently, the Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations series has published a new Latin text and English translation, authored by Abram Ring: Waltharius. Edition, Translation, and Introduction by Abram Ring, Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations 22 (Louvain: Peeters, 2016).
Another English translation is Brian Murdoch's, Walthari: A Verse Translation of the Medieval Latin Waltharius, Scottish Papers in Germanic Studies, 9 (Glasgow, 1989). There are German translations by F. Linnig (Paderborn, 1885), H. Althof (Leipzig, 1896), and Karl Langosch (Darmstadt, 1967).
With Waltharius compare the Scottish ballads of "Earl Brand" and "Erlinton" (F.J. Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, i. 88 seq.).
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